Highway traffic control devices and procedures help vehicles safely share the same highways. These traffic control procedures establish rules and instructions that help drivers avoid collisions. With million of motorists on the highways, traffic control devices are required to avoid collisions and ensure that motorists travel safely to their destinations. Traffic control includes textual signs, traffic lights, and other devices that communicate specific directions, warnings, or requirements. With over 55 million traffic signs in use today in the United States, textual traffic signs are the most extensive form of traffic control in use today.
Global Positioning System (GPS) is a space-based radio navigation system consisting of 24 satellites and ground support. GPS provides users with accurate information about their position and velocity, as well as the time, anywhere in the world and in all weather conditions. GPS receivers are now available for installation in vehicles. A user with a GPS receiver can determine latitude, longitude, and altitude. The receiver triangulates its exact position by measuring the transmission time of at least three satellite signals to the GPS receiver. With a GPS receiver, a driver can effectively navigate to a particular location. However, GPS systems have no means for displaying anything other than street names and points of interests.
The growth in wide use of mobile computing devices such as PDA's, cell phones, notebooks, and other portable computing devices has driven the advancement of wireless networks. Wireless networks use either infrared or radio-frequency transmissions to link these mobile computing devices. Wireless wide area networks (WANs) can use cellular telephone networks, satellite communications or another suitable proprietary network.
Because of visibility limitations due to lighting conditions, improper placed signs, road conditions, sign clutter, a driver can miss a pertinent textual traffic sign or commit a traffic violation. Thus, what is needed is a system and method of transmitting road sign content information on a display device located within a vehicle utilizing a wireless communication network.